I’m a little late with this blog post as the last couple of days have been incredibly busy. Last Wednesday I was on hand at Friends Arena to photograph a friendly between Sweden and Norway. This match was the final test before Sweden’s World Cup qualification match against Ireland.
Sweden is in Group C along with Germany, Austria, Ireland, Kazakhstan, and the Faroe Islands. Germany is in first place with 16 points. Austria, Sweden, and Ireland are all trailing with 11 points. Meanwhile Kazakhstan and the Faroe Islands are in the bottom of the group, the first with one point and the later with 0 points.
In the next round Sweden will travel to Dublin to meet Ireland while Austria will head to Germany. Clearly the next round sets the stage for the conclusion of the group. The most likely outcome of Germany-Austria is a victory for the Germans, extending their first place lead. If Sweden comes out of Dublin with a victory they move into second place. A draw would see the group remain very tight. A loss to Ireland could end up being catastrophic for them.
I’m planning on traveling to Dublin and will be on hand at Aviva Stadium to photograph the match. It’s the first time I travel outside of Sweden to cover an event and I’m super excited that Pic-Agency is giving me this opportunity. Considering that the first football game I photographed was in August of 2010 it’s not at all bad progress for a little over 3 years. At this rate I just might be able to sneak into the next Euros in France.
For a friendly the game against Norway was actually pretty exciting. Thanks very much to Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovich. He wasted no time in taking over and the whole night turned into the Ibra show. He scored two goals in the first half and then found the third from a free kick in the second half. It’s the second time I’ve seen him absolutely dominate the opposition at Friends Arena. The first was the arena’s opening match against England where he did one better and had 4 goals, each better than the previous. Ibrahimovic is now Sweden’s second top scorer of all time. He has 44 goals in 91 appearances. He only needs 6 more goals to cement first place and surpass Sven Rydell. Something I expect he will pull off with relative ease.
These images and more available via Pic-Agency.